


Long, Lonely Nights - A Oneshot Collection

by AntipathicZora



Category: Changeling: The Lost, Hunter: The Reckoning, Promethean: The Created, Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, World of Darkness (Games), Wraith: The Oblivion
Genre: Gen, Introspective Bullshit, One-Shot Collection, Other, and hopefully the general wod tag catches the rest, i'm not gonna tag every game line my troupe uses, real sad bITCH hours, so i'm just tagging the ones i know i've written about
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:16:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntipathicZora/pseuds/AntipathicZora
Summary: A collection of microfictions written about various characters and alternate universes played by the Epoch troupe.
Kudos: 1





	1. Escape

It was neither unknowing crime, nor need for beasts of burden that saw you grasped in the talons of the monster that stole you away. The last thing you remember before being dragged across that twisted hellscape was glimmers of shadow taking your shape from a framework of sticks and leaves, and wondering what the hell would happen to your sister.

And then, after that, spiraling, vomitous, shifting landscapes that no mortal was ever meant to see. Talons over your form, molesting you, changing you irreversably, into the perfect hunter. Glittering scale, tremendous, proud wings. And yet, though you wore the skin of an apex predator, you were no more powerful than you had ever been.

No, this monster had a plan for you.

It was all you ever heard from it. Over and over and over and over again. Unrelenting. Whether given task and lauded as the beast’s perfect huntress.

Find the Fire.

Find the Fire.

Find it, or you have no worth, in Faerie or otherwise.

But you couldn’t find it. No matter how hard you tried, you have never found it. You don’t even know what it looks like. You don’t know how you would know what it is. If Prometheus stole it, then he did a service by spiting this awful thing.

The lashings were never physical. Though the beast was capable of horrific, bloody feats of violence in its quest to rediscover its lost name, it knew your weaknesses. It drove wedges into your already fractured mind and tore apart your self worth. Over, and over, and over, until you were in pieces. And in Faerie, all metaphor may as well be real. You remember being rebuilt and re-molested all over again, when you would fall apart, never quite allowed to let go. And then, the cycle began anew.

Find the Fire, or you are nothing.

And the cycle kept going, and kept going, and kept going again. Never ending, never broken.

Until the day a passing thought shot through you like a bullet.

“Sister wouldn’t treat me like this.”

That moment shattered the chains around your mind, and suddenly your clarity returned to you, all at once, in a dizzying and blistering haze. You were human once. You had a mother. You had a twin. You had a home, and a life outside this abuse. You knew you needed to get back to it. They needed you, and you needed them. You loved them with all your heart. You didn’t even know what had become of your twin. If the beast stole her, you never knew about it. If something else did, you didn’t know. If she was still out there, unknowing, you didn’t know.

But you needed, with all your heart and soul, to find out.

When the monster next sent you out to “find the Fire”, you simply never returned. You ran, and you ran, and you ran, until you ran through Arcadia’s veil, and you tore whole-cloth like a rampaging wyrm through the thorns of the Hedge until finally you spilled through a gate into the real world you left behind.

And as you took those first steps, bloodied and wounded from rampaging through the briars, you realized you weren’t anywhere remotely close to the place you were taken from.

You smelled sea salt, and tasted the tinge of smoke in the warm, dry air. The sky was so hazy that the sun above you burned in an angry red. It was a little bit tough to breathe, and on top of that, you were torn up and hurting. You wandered aimlessly, trying to find where you had been dumped, and eventually you came upon the knowledge that you were dragged entirely across the continent.

Now, you stood in Victoria, in the province of British Columbia. A country you weren’t from, on the complete opposite coast.

You remembered that figure of you, the last thing you saw before you were taken. You knew you had been replaced. At first, you were angry. But soon, as the feeling of being utterly lost overwhelmed you, you knew that that copy didn’t ask to exist any more than you had asked to be here.

You thought about your sister.

If you had been replaced, she’d notice. She’d lose her mind and run off to do something that she might not regret, but you would. You knew her. The two of you had talked about it. If she had been taken, she was either still in there, or had escaped and been spit out somewhere else.

Whatever the case, the life you knew had been destroyed. You could never have it back, you could never go home. And you just had to accept that.

It was days, weeks, of sleeping on benches and dodging getting mugged before anyone found you. When they did, they took you into the city’s notorious Chinatown. You were brought to a space in between four buildings, one in each cardinal direction, and told you were safe here. You were told of the Courts, of your new existence. You knew now that even if you did go home, it still wouldn’t be the same.

Without a moment’s hesitation, you chose to walk to the West. The two who found you seemed surprised that you would take that mantle even after describing the year of hazing that such Lost must endure to enter that court. But you know yourself better. You needed that discipline. You needed to work the imperfection out of yourself. You can’t go back to how you were, ever. And the utter breaking of your will, over and over, still stung, even if right now your durance was still hazy.

No, now that you were free, you would ensure that no one would ever suffer that way again. You would learn the art of war and you would turn it toward the Others. And you would happily take it right to the beast that stole you away.

Even if it was the last thing you ever did.


	2. Fetch

At first it was confusing to you why all of a sudden your sister, the only one you had ever known, went berserk at you and ran off, claiming you weren’t real. Suddenly, you were alone. Suddenly, you were hungry and hurting and wounded and sad, unable to make ends meet in a tiny, expensive city apartment. Then you were homeless. Then you were wandering the streets. And then, you left the streets and wandered into the wilderness.

You always felt at home here, but you went with what you could get. You missed her, but you did what you could. Out here, you were somewhat happy. You made your own home with scraps and plywood and made your own food with seed packets you bought with your last scraps of change.

One day, though, the depression came back to haunt you. Worse than ever before. Somewhere, in the pit of your stomach, you knew she was right. You weren’t the real you, a fact that haunted you every day after that. Somewhere across the continent, you somehow knew that the real you had escaped a grisly fate. She was far from home. She was as scared as you had been.

You couldn’t make yourself feel angry. Not pity. Only sympathy and echoing hurt.

But that didn’t stop others from trying to prey on that hurt. Try to twist it into hate. Somebody found you, eventually, and called you out for what you were. A fetch. Animated by the shadows of the Divine Fire, made to replace somebody that ‘the masters’ took away, but they probably deserved it somehow. He taught you the echoes of faerie power, but he was hellbent on destroying his copy, and talking you into doing the same. Proving he was real. It scared you, more than anything, that twisted sociopathic desire. He bought you a plane ticket to Vancouver, and gave you the money to buy a ferry ticket. Urged you to take the life back that you were somehow owed. Told you to make her pay for escaping ‘the masters’ wishes’.

In exchange, you gave him an abandoned clearing, with all the things that had made it a home stripped away come morning’s light. You wandered even further into the wilds. Full of fear. Full of emptiness.

That ticket still weighs heavy in your pocket. You wonder what she’s like. You wonder if she’d just try to kill you like he said.

You wonder if “sister” was ever real. You have your other’s memories, you know that it was drastically out of character… or was it? If you went back, would you be able to call her as being a ‘fetch’? Or was she that twisted all along, a mess of insanity brewing underneath jealous green eyes?

You wonder if it’s better to take your chances with the changelings.


	3. Loneliness

Another night spent staring into a glass of whiskey and wondering just where I went wrong.

The bartender told me to play something else on the jukebox. Guess they’re sick of Yes. I can’t understand how anyone could get sick of Yes, really. I change it to Pink Floyd, hoping that’ll keep him quiet for a while.

The song is Wish You Were Here. I don’t really know if I wish she was here, though.

It runs through my head every time I come here. I’m one of the regulars now. So is she, somewhere else. Somewhere darker. Some other bar in some dingy alleyway in some more violent part of town. But she’s a regular for different reasons than I am. 

I know why I’m here. I know I have a drinking problem, but I don’t know if I have the will to do anything about it. It’s not as bad as it could be, I guess. The drinks are good here. I like the bite in the back of my throat, it reminds me that I’m actually alive. But I’m not really trying to numb any pain. I don’t think I need it to live or anything like that. I already know that some fermented corn water isn’t going to soothe the kind of wounds I’ve got. Most importantly, past the bottle, though… it’s warm and inviting here. Even though I have a roommate, sometimes the apartment still feels too empty.

Her, though… tch. Why even bother? If she wants blood, she can just grab any dumb schmuck off the street and bite them. What’s the point of putting up appearances?

I guess I can’t be as bitter as I want to be. Trying to look human at all is better than some of the leeches I’ve heard of. You know, full-Dracula, uncaring monsters. The ones that really do push the narrative that vampires are all of the Wyrm, to the last.

The fact is, I loved her. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. Not in like a weird, incest-y way, definitely not. But when you’ve known someone literally from the moment of your birth, it’s difficult to even so much as imagine your life without them. But here I am. She ran off on me. She got bit, and only then did she start talking to me again. Yeah, I was upset. I was unimaginably upset. That usually spells bad things when you’re a Garou. But the Rage just wasn’t there. No matter how upset I was… it wasn’t anger, supernatural or otherwise. It was crushing depression. Knowing why she ran off, and knowing the expectations on my shoulders. 

But I just couldn’t do it. I would never have been able to do it, and I knew it, and I still know it. I couldn’t cut her out of my life, either. Because I loved her. Because I still cared. But those other Garou, they’d ask me if I ever found her. They’d ask me what I did with her. 

And I can never tell them. I can never go back. Because I can’t abandon her. I’m not physically capable. I may not have taken the offer of blood she made me, but I still can never go back. Because they’ll find out. And they’ll kill her. I’m sure they’ll kill me too, but that doesn’t matter to me. The quiet black of oblivion sounds nice to me, but she fears it. And I know I can never let that come to pass.

As I am now, I am only just a step above Ronin. I have a tribe. I carry Cockroach’s banner the same as I ever have. I do Gaia’s work as much as I can. I have not denied my spiritual duty the way Ronin do. But I have no sept, and I have no pack, and as far as I’m concerned, I might never.

Of course I’m not okay with it. Why would I be? I’m bitter. Fuck me ever feeling like I belonged somewhere, right? Fuck me ever having a culture that’s mine and that I don’t feel like an outsider to just because my mom is white and I never knew my dad. 

But I’ve accepted it. I am alone. 

It just happens that as it turns out, being alone attracts other lonely people. Other outsiders, maybe not just like me, but they wander just like me. They’re hurting, just like me. They want to love and be loved. Just like me.

And as it turns out, I have a lot of that to spare. Even though that’s already bitten me hard in the ass.

I finish the glass of whiskey and order another one. And then, I raise a toast to loneliness.


	4. Alone

You woke up into this strange new world alone, with only the memories of a home that’s long gone, the taste of blood in your mouth and… her. The sister you spent so long being bitter at. She picked a planet with what she considered to be a suitable view for you to wake up on in peace, though you’re pretty sure now that there’s a few spots you personally find prettier. And she was so excited to hear from you again, even after the years technically apart took their toll. You suppose it’s better than had you stayed behind to die in the battle.

Everything the two of you had managed to salvage sat sealed away in containers next to you, as well as mementos you had collected from your friends over the time you knew them. A guitar pick with an alchemical symbol on it, a beaded bracelet of Indian design. A talen made by the hands of a novice, and several sheets of rejected song lyrics from a band called Flight of the Jovian Concord. A rose pressed between the pages of a volume of poetry that looked far older than you, even back then, and a simple red tie. A brooch shaped like a spider, and an old, torn-up blindfold. 

Each one carried a story, and each one belonged to a person that you knew had long passed on. Some of them, you saw die with your own eyes, the impetus to your long sleep. The others, you knew only had so long to live. Not all of them were Sister, they didn’t carry immortal blood. Every single one was gone now, some way or another.

So when you learned about a ship setting sail for Earthspace, it was only natural that you would answer the call.

Your sister asked you not to go, at least at first. Who knew how long it would take, she couldn’t lose you now. Not after three hundred years. What if that ancient being reawoke? You told her you didn’t care. If you didn’t do this, you would never be able to move on. They needed to be laid to rest somehow, and it was through these last items that you would do so. She would be soon to relent, spending those days of preparation filling vials with her old blood and packing them for you that you might carry her there too, that she might still supply you even when you’re so far away. 

You didn’t tell her that you intended to bury one there too. You never forgot the times before she was kindred, even if she might have. If you’re ever to move past it and finally accept her in full, that too must be buried in the soil of your home. Some might think you crazy, but you know better. 

You finally board the Strider ship knowing that you will be laying the dead to rest when you arrive. Like when you both were born, like you were when sister was embraced, like you were at the very end of the world, you will be alone again.


	5. In Memoriam

Eventually, after a while of searching, she did find the former residential area of Seattle where she used to live. The hollowed out outlines of the buildings stood distinct even underneath the shade of the trees that had grown from sidewalk decorations into a wild, primeval forest. But here, now, the air felt different than it did back then. Once upon a time, it was a normal city block. Maybe the air was a little cleaner than most urban centers, but it was just a row of apartments with a couple of bars on the street corners. Now, though, the air smelled like moss and leaves, petrichor and pollen, which tingled her nose in a way she wasn’t used to, and the place felt like a welcoming sorrow.

First, she stopped in front of the remains of the bar she always used to frequent. She might not have been able to recognize it if not for the moss-covered remains of the jukebox that she would put so many quarters into, and the bar’s name and logo engraved into the side of still-standing granite countertops. Eroded glass nuggets from old bottles of wine and whiskey that were now embedded into the forest floor like a pathway of gems paved the ground underneath her as she entered her old watering hole and caught the tears that fell from her face. 

Here, in the soft earth where a foundation used to be, she began to dig two holes until they were about a foot deep. From her clear plastic box, she withdrew a number of little steel objects. One round, broad piece etched with alchemical symbols, and three clamps that looked like they fit around somebody’s spinal column. After gazing around the area to ensure no one had seen or followed her, she set them in the holes as gently as if they were made of crystal.

“Spirits of this ancient neighborhood… please join me in remembering the people close to me who are no longer with me.” She spoke to no one in particular. “Please, witness me as I bury them here, so that their memories may rest and so that I may move on and accept whoever Gaia may have made them now.”

After a pause, during which the wind seemed to rustle the leaves in reply, she bowed her head and filled the two holes again.

“Zerah Stark was a man like few others. He was not a man who was born to a mother and father, no. He was created by the hands of another like him from the bodies of those who came before him and was animated by the stuff of the Wyld. Though he had his own problems, though he was driven to some things that I can’t say I was okay with, he was a friend like no other. Devoted, loyal, and caring, like the family I wish I had, and all he wanted was to be human like the rest of us. He followed schools of learning to hone and forge his own soul from fire, as all of the Created do. Through him, I met Candy. She was like him in what she was, but she handled it a bit differently. A fireball of a woman, a fighter, who took no shit from a world who only had dogshit to offer her. I didn’t know her as well as him, but I wish I did. Oh, I wish I did. Well, they met their goal, the both of them. In a whorl of flame and light, they became human. And what’s more, they remembered me. They kept me in their lives until the minute the Wyrm rose to end existence. I don’t know what became of them, after that, but I hope that, whoever they’ve become, they’re happy.”

Speaking those words of eulogy here, in this place, felt like a balm to her wounded heart. After a few moments to look upon the two makeshift graves, she picked up two mossy bricks from the ruins of the wall beside her, and etched their names into the stone with a small vibroknife she was given. The best headstones she could manage, but headstones they were nonetheless.

Not far off, there was a small patch bare of the marks of buildings where once she remembered a playground and a small park. Rusted steel bars stuck up from the soil, and a plastic slide where once children burned their bare legs in the summer playing upon it now held decayed leaves and the shoots of new plants. Here, she supposed, would be a good place to memorialize a few more. Ones whose homes and favorite places would be totally gone. Now from the box was procured a few sheets of music and rejected lyrics, and the shattered pieces of a broken smartphone.

“Jason Redstone, musician, just as troubled as I was. Terribly shaken, and especially be the circumstances of how he came into what was once a world sideways to what is human. But underneath that, there was a loyal friend, a voice of reason, a talent that I was honored that he would share with me in the form of a band. He was able to keep me together like few others were, and I tried to pay that forward to him, too. When I was with him, the boundaries of what we were no longer mattered. We were friends, and we always would be. Wherever he is now, I hope he knows that I meant that. I hope he knows that I will always be his friend.

“Aidan Kato was a mess of a Garou. His parents treated him like dirt and his brother was the golden child, so he left them to find his own way in a world that would eat you alive if you weren’t careful. And he didn’t just survive, he thrived. He was one of the most clever Theurges I ever knew, and he was one of the few Garou who didn’t judge me for what… what happened. He was a disaster in a chair, but… he was also a powerful leader, and very, very smart, even if he didn’t know it. Self-sufficient, and creative under pressure. If he’s still out there, I hope he’s just as successful as I knew he could be.”

The names of these two old friends were etched into a couple of fairly large-sized stones not too far away and placed as markers, and again, she got up, and wandered her former home, walking the broken pavement as if it were still an intact sidewalk. Past broken homes and shattered memories, she stepped slowly and silently through the eerie, quiet grove, letting that feeling of sorrow and nostalgia wash over her. She could swear she still heard peoples’ voices when she closed her eyes. The joys, the sadnesses, the hopes and dreams that still lingered here.

She stopped in what looked like what must have been an alleyway. The crumpled metal of a dumpster lay sunken into the ground, eaten away and rusting, and here she chose to bury her next item. A torn apart blindfold, still covered in faint bloodstains even through the dark fabric, drifted gently into the hole.

“I didn’t know Midnight well at all… she was my weed dealer, but I never questioned where she got it, because she didn’t make me pay too much, and my only other option was the horrible snake that also trawled the alleyways. But she was respectful, and we would talk every now and again. I wonder if she got away. I wonder if she finally found the peace she always needed. I wonder if she was treated right, in those intervening years. She was a good woman, despite her circumstances. I hope she finally found rest somewhere out there.”

It wasn’t far to the ruins of another building, this one with a large patch of lilies inside it, waving in the breeze. Seeing that sunset-colored sea, she smiled despite herself, and here is where she came to sit. At the edge of the bed of flowers, She dug out three more miniature graves. In these, were placed a beaded bracelet, a dried and preserved rose, and a simple red tie.

“Reva, my dear roommate. My dearest friend. You came into my life through a want ad for a roommate after my sister left me, and you were never anything other than the best partner in crime that anyone could ask for. You were sweet when you needed to be, overwhelmingly genuine and earnest, but you had fight in you. Fire, hidden away until you really needed it. Maybe we weren’t the best for each other’s vices. The two of us drank far too much, but how much of that is our fault? We had problems. But I never really got to tell you how much I loved you. How much I truly valued you and how precious your company was when I was otherwise all alone. Sure, I managed to put together friends. But they weren’t always there. You were. Wherever you are, I still think about you. Your strength, your fire… that will never leave me.

“And… then there’s the two of you… I once heard you both called the Salad Twins by a particularly petty vampire, before I ever met the two of you. We were from two different worlds, but by the time we met, the lines had blurred for me. I was wary, sure. My only other experience with kindred at that time was… painful. Unbearably so. But you showed me that the Wyrm really doesn’t hold sway over all of you. That you can fight back, that you can still be a light in the darkness. You two, who would have been my husband and sister in law, if only I had worked up the nerve to ask before the end. Without you in my life, I am left with a hole in my heart that I can never fill. There will never be anyone like you. I miss you. I will never stop missing you.”

After a moment’s pause, she gazed into the now-empty box, and reached into the backpack she wore. From it, from among several others like it, she withdrew a vial of dark crimson liquid, which swished around in its bottle and left deep red residue on the glass.

“… Sister.”

She scooped out one last hole nearby the others, then popped the top off of the vial. She emptied the vitae into the hole, then with her vibroknife, stabbed into her hand without a moment’s hesitation and let herself bleed into it.

“You aren’t dead. If you have any say in it, you never will be, and as much as it scares me to think about it, neither will I. It was by your insistence that I fled instead of trying to prove that I was actually worth something in the Final Battle, and you carried my sleeping ass across the galaxy with you for three hundred years. Were it not for you, I would have woken up to nothing. Without you, I would have woken alone and scared, and I probably would have claimed my own life. You gave me the questionable gift of vitae, and in this strange new world, I am accepted despite it. No longer do I walk a path of exiled solitude. I have found a makeshift family with other Changing Blood. Finally, I belong. Though I miss many, I have faith that Gaia will lead me to them again. But I would not have survived without you.

“If you were here, listening to this, you would ask me what the point of wasting that vitae is. You would ask me why I bleed myself into a dirt hole. The simple truth is, I’m not burying you. Not really. This is not a burning of bridges. It’s a rite of sorts. Not a real, spiritual rite, no. It’s three men to a pack minimum to conduct one of those, and I sit here alone, with no rite knowledge to speak of. No, this is just a ritual of my own design. A symbolic burying of my own bitterness. For a long time, I held your choice as an insult to me and everything I am. From my end, you rejected everything I tried to do for you, every means I tried to elevate you with, and turned to a more instant solution. Older, less compassionate mutts held my refusal to harm you against me, and it is only by the grace of Gaia and Cockroach that I still held on, that I never gave up, that I never fell to the boundary of darkness where Ronin tread.

“But if you had never done that, I don’t think I would ever have found the others that I buried today. If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t still be here. I still don’t view what you did as a good thing. It hurt more than anything I can imagine, and in a way it still hurts. But fate is funny that way. What might hurt might also lead you to the greatest people you have ever met. Without that, I would never have put up the Craigslist ad that brought Reva into my life. I would have never sought out companionship and met Zerah, or Jason, or Candy, or even Aidan. I would never have given other vampires a ghost of a chance and met the love of my life. As I sit here, so far removed from the world I used to know, I finally see that. It was far from a good thing, what you did. In the moment, it was horrible. But it led to so many good things, good people, that as I speak their eulogies, I lay my bitterness to rest here with them.”

She finally closed the last hole, and laid down in the sea of flowers. She knew the others that had come with her on the ship would wonder where she had been, and they’d wonder why she was wounded, but now that she had laid bare her soul, she was tired. Tired, yet the ache in her soul was eased. Here in the calm, her loved ones as they were would forever rest, and now she could greet them as they are. Maybe check into that therapist, too.

But right now, a short nap wouldn’t hurt.


	6. One Last Memorial

She woke in that same field of flowers, after gentle dreams of the loved ones she had buried there. Speaking to them one final time, receiving her closure so that she might accept them for who they are now. But as she wiped the sleep from her eyes, she realized that one of those old friends was missing. One who she had forgotten. Maybe even forgotten on purpose.

Remaining in the small tupperware box was an old cartridge.

After a moment of staring down at it, she gingerly removed it from the box, and held it in her hands. One of her favorite games, a wonderful experience to play. Something she had hunted for in good condition for ages before she finally found it at a thrift store for ten dollars, because the person who put the tag on it just didn’t know what it was. And it even came with a free friend who was willing to try to pull her out of a very dark place.

She didn’t dig a hole this time. She couldn’t bring herself to, not after the promises she had made.

“…. I can’t bury you, Elijah. Someone did that for me in the nineties.” She drew in a deep breath. “Hah… what nineties am I even talking about anymore. Three hundred years… in all the mess, all your other ties… I wish I knew what happened. When I noticed you were missing, it was too late… did you survive? Did the Wyrm have you, or… did something else happen. Were you born again somewhere…? Are you dead and gone forever? Something about how you were when we met… maybe that makes this one the hardest. Because I can’t have that faith that I’ll ever see you again, not like the others. Maybe that’s why I forgot you. Maybe I just didn’t want to face that.”

She reached for another brick, etching a name carefully into the masonry and setting it beside the graves of her would-be husband and sister in law, and her roommate. “Those long nights alone might have saved me. Just us, shooting the shit, learning about each others’ worlds. You never deserved what that world gave you, but… I hope I made some difference in death that you never got in life. Do you remember that time I showed you that this game had a sequel? How our lives and not-lives changed that night? I’ve seen Samsa around, in space and even here… and we helped with that. You and me… you really did make a difference. I hope you went out knowing that. If not to the world, then… to me.

“Even if I couldn’t face it before… I have to. For my sake, and yours. No way you’d want me to tear myself apart over this. Not after how you found me. I don’t know if you’re still out there. I can’t have absolute faith… but I can hope, can’t I? The least I can do for you is uphold that promise. I won’t bury this cartridge. I couldn’t make myself if I tried, because I promised you. This thing isn’t just a piece of you, not like that tie, or… my sister’s blood, or one of those dried roses… this is an oath, and… even if you are gone, I’m going to uphold it. Until the day I die.”

The tears came silent as she lowered the cart back into the box. She laid back down and curled into herself, staring into the swaying trees above and breathing in the clean air of the planet where all this started.

Maybe the others could… wait a while longer.


	7. On Intimacy

Heh. Funny how it is, you know?

Everyone makes a big deal of the First Time. They want it to be special. Some people want it to be with the person they’re gonna be with forever. There’s entire religious doctrine surrounding not doing it until you’re married. Even in my culture, usually it’s done with the expectation that you’re actually breeding. 

And here I am, and mine was done in the quiet with a friend, with whom I can never conceive. I think that’s fine, really. Perfect, in fact.

Hardline traditionalists would wonder why I’m throwing away my womb, but it was one time, and you can’t throw away something that might never have been viable in the first place. When I used to actually visit the sept I’d get weird middle-aged Garou telling me I’ll be a great mother. ‘Will be’, mind you, not ‘would be’. They made it sound like an absolute. I never had the heart or nerve to tell them otherwise. Made it easier to detach myself and just fade away quietly when the time came that I learned what Anya turned into.

For a second, after that last comment, after I knew what she did but before anyone else knew, I guess I understood for a second how she felt. About the society. About her only worth being her ovaries. Retrospect is a weird fucking animal, but here we are.

I never saw it the way they did. Maybe if I had a dad, had that older Garou in my life, been indoctrinated into it, I would have a better understanding. But I don’t. To me, it’s just not that big of a deal. My mom never really made a big deal out of sex and intimacy the way I’ve heard others do. It’s just a thing that happens. Yeah we got the talk, sure we did. Mom was very thorough about it. As soon as either of us started bringing up those feelings, she made sure we were experts and knew how to be safe. But there was never any of that marriage shite, or waiting for The Right One.

It was never about some sacred bond, to me. Not really. It’s not a sacrament that should never be dirtied by casual attitude, it’s just a thing you can do with your meat caves and your yogurt tubes. A way to be close with someone you enjoy the company of. And even better if you don’t have to worry about siring a baby. That’s it. 

Fuck, though… now that I think about it, I don’t even really know what a romantic connection really feels like. I know what love is, and I know that there’s a lot of different kinds, but I don’t know what that specific love is. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about it before. I was more focused on my friends, and… her. I don’t know what romantic love implies. I don’t even know if I want it, because I’ve never thought about it, because most of my closeness I’ve gotten from the friends I’ve picked up. Is this how you discover you’re aromantic? Is it too soon to make that call? If I see someone like that, will I just know?

I’m sorry. I’m monologuing again.


	8. On Homes, and Emptiness

I’ve lived in here alone since I woke up. Every so often, I dock here, I visit my sister, I pick up vitae. She was the one who recommended the therapist at this station, since she lives here now when she’s not doing… whatever it is she does these days. I don’t know if I care. Once I woke up, she gifted me my own ship. This thing. Based on the patches, I know it used to be a junker… her whole ship is made of that porcelain and meat. Apparently Tzimisce love that shit these days. I didn’t have the stuff to say I thought it was gross, but it maintains life support pretty well, so I guess I can’t complain.

I set it up as best I could to look like my old apartment. I even brought things back from my trip… I dug up the bulbs from that lily field and planted them here in jars full of dirt dug straight from back there. I took the address plate from the apartment building and it’s in that cabinet now. It’s not the standard, because most folks live out of skydocks and on planets, but… ever since the Apocalypse came and went, nothing I’ve seen has felt like home. 

And trust me, I’ve been looking. Looking for a place to settle down in some corner of the universe. But the closest I ever got was Earth, and I would have to fight fang and claw to convince the Union that it’s worth allowing travel back there. I might, still, one day. I kept seeing it in my dreams. I know Elpis was telling me to go home. But until I find a place that feels like that, I just live out of my ship. It’s all I need, I guess.

But being close to my apartment doesn’t ease the loneliness, not really.

Every now and then, I catch myself talking to nothing. As if he’s going to hear me from Oblivion. Sometimes I still smell the ghost of curry powder and pepper in the air, like dinner is almost ready, but it’s gone just as fast as it came. I’ll feel static in the air like if someone used their Transmutations nearby me. It makes me wonder if I’m going mad, sometimes. Letting my wishful thinking rule over me and hallucinate.

I don’t think I’ve quite felt so desperately lonely since my mother died. When my sister walked out on me that night and never came back, she really didn’t come back. And my mom, she was… already depressed. I tried to pretend everything was okay, but… she found out, eventually, that she disappeared. She didn’t take it well at all. Mom wasn’t gone for more than an hour when I found her hanging from her ceiling fan. She was still warm. In that moment, suddenly I was utterly, crushingly alone and insignificant.

I never told Anya when she finally decided to speak to me again, and I don’t think she ever found out. Now, I never will.

I started drinking after that. It wasn’t some kind of cure-all, but it made it hurt less for a while. In that bar, I wasn’t alone. I was surrounded by others. There were people to talk to, and I got addicted to it as much as I did the liquor. Maybe even more than that. It turned into a problem pretty quickly, and soon I caught myself doing it at home, too. I let it happen. I no longer cared. Even when I had a roommate, and suddenly I wasn’t so alone, it was already a habit and she had a bit of a problem too.

Since I’ve woken up, that urge is back. I can feel it in the back of my throat. That craving, for burning liquor to numb what I’ve been feeling. This time I know better. I fought it off once already, and… I’d be a disappointment to everyone I lost if I fell off the wagon now. But it never really goes away in times like these. It sits there, eating at my backbrain, tempting me back. And I know I did that to myself.

You’re probably wondering why the hell I’ve opted to prattle on at the both of you about things that happened hundreds of years ago.

The truth is, I felt like if we’re in this, you two should know. What I’ve been through. What to look out for.

Because for this brief moment, suddenly this ship felt a little bit like home.


	9. On Holidays

Man, I… I’m sorry if maybe I’ve been a little bit overeager about the holidays.

Anya, she never really liked them, not the way I did. She’d just sort of get huffy and turn the music off whenever she’d get the chance. Or she’d talk about all those ‘other’ holidays that don’t get as much screentime, when it’s like... yeah those are awesome, but neither of us are Jewish enough for Hannukah or black enough for Kwanzaa. And both of those holidays are super-important to the people they belong to, you know? Of course they don’t get as much air time as Christmas, Christmas is the only holiday of the season that just about anyone can celebrate.

I haven’t really bothered to reach out to her this year like I always used to… what’s the point? What do you even get some high and mighty better-than-you vampire? Actually give her what she wants and paint a giant target on my back by taking her blood? Absolutely not. She used to bitch about me having no sense of survival instincts, well… turns out I do. They’re just highly tuned toward not dying in stupid ways like that.

… It must be so cloying. All this… blinding red and green, and the lights everywhere, like I’m trying to make something out of nothing.

I guess seeing Zerah experience the holiday through a pair of fresh eyes woke something up that’s been dying in me for a long time. The truth is, I always loved the holidays even if I didn’t like the cold so much. For as long as I can remember, they were one of the only times of year I would get to see Mom really, legitimately happy, and not… struggling. I still have every single one of the outfits she made us every year. Hell, I’m wearing one right now… it’s nice, right? She was a professional seamstress…

...Sorry, I’m getting off base again.

She was always so legitimately happy, and I guess it rubbed off. I loved the bright lights on houses and the trees in peoples’ windows and all the songs about joy and cheer. It got me excited the same way Halloween got Anya excited. Don’t get me wrong, I love that holiday too, but… it’s not the same to me, I guess? And… I know, I know, of course little kids love it, they love presents. I promise the presents always used to be the furthest thing from my mind. I liked giving more, I liked bringing a little bit of my happiness into other peoples’ lives.

That’s been slowly crushed lately, though… last year, I was utterly alone, and even before that, I couldn’t really celebrate the way I always wanted to… because of her, and her… cynicism. It made it… tough. Tough to really get into the spirit, when she’d get pissy any time I wanted to watch a cheesy Hallmark movie or bake cookies or listen to the music. And then, once she left, and I was left alone, I… didn’t see much of a point in even trying. To do anything, let alone celebrate.

But… then I started rebuilding a life for myself. Got a roommate, actual friends. I have a family again. It’s not perfect, and it’s maybe even a little bit weird, but… it’s mine, and I love every single one of you. So seeing those fresh eyes, I… felt something again. I felt like I needed to get up and decorate. Get Mom’s tree out of the back room, put up the garlands and lights. Maybe… try to actually do a Christmas card this year.

I’m sorry if it’s a little… much, all of a sudden.


	10. On Spirits of Hope

Sometimes I wonder if I’m cut out for the totem spirit that found her way to me.

In my darkest hours, she came to greet me in dreams and gave me the veiled guides that marked my path to recovery, and then she stayed by me. But I know what she is to people like my friend, and I know what she stands for. Elpis is what the Created name their propensity for prophetic dreams, but she’s much more than just that. She’s the embodiment of Hope. For the future, for the world, for loved ones. Hope, for everything. Surely one of the closest to Gaia’s heart, if She really does love everyone and everything that way.

But what exactly does that mean for me? Why did this unknowably powerful spirit, ancient and sacred as she is, decide that I was the one who was worth her time?

I still think about that dream, and the circumstances around it.

I have always been packless. A failure of a Garou, really, but I hauled my weight enough to carry some rank. But it was lonely living, and… well, you know how that goes. It’s how we hit it off as well as we did. All I had was my family, really. So naturally, that would fall apart the second it was able to.

Once... she, left, I picked up a bottle, and I started drinking. The pain stopped. The Rage in me died. So I drank some more. Some people, they’re angry drunks, and if I was that, I would have been a terrifying sight to behold. But I wasn’t. Everything felt blunted and dim, and in the moment, that’s what I wanted. There are some times where I can’t remember anything, and maybe I did things I would regret, if I knew what they were. And this kept going. It just kept continuing, downward and downward into the black. It’s a miracle nothing decided to possess me during that time.

It kept going, until one day, I found that I couldn’t change shape anymore. And somewhere deep inside of me, maybe I was alright with that. I no longer had the strength to be concerned, I was lost and tired, and I had gotten good at hiding it. During that time, I met Zerah. He was so bright, so brilliant. A beacon of… hope. Despite his circumstances, he wanted so much to be human. To be real, and whole. And I couldn’t help but admire that. For a moment, there was a little spark inside me. Some little hint of will.

I hid my vice from him for a while. He didn’t need to know what was wrong. Then, though… then my mother died. After that, all bets were off. I know he was worried. He had his own things to do, but I started seeing him more. He pushed me to get a roommate, and having her around helped me, but she also has her own life. On top of that, we would go out drinking together. I wonder if she knew how bad it was. I don’t think she would have stood for it if she did.

Things were hazier than ever before when I had that first dream. The light inside me was dying, I was close to losing the wolf again. I could feel Banes watching me, waiting for the moment they could latch on to my soul and destroy me forevermore. I could only really hope I keeled over before then so all they had was an easily disposed of corpse to play with. In a way, I guess that’s what I wanted. I couldn’t muster the will to end it quickly, though, because it all seemed like a lot of trouble that I almost certainly would have been caught in the act of.

First, I was suspended in a pitch black void. I could hear nothing, I could see nothing, I could feel, smell and taste nothing. I hung there, neither falling nor ascending nor moving at all, for a very long time. Eventually, in the distance, I began to see a light. I don’t know if my eyes adjusted, or if it really did just manifest there, but I began to walk toward it. Walking for a very, very long time. 

When I reached it, finally, I was greeted with a wolf. It wasn’t me, no. This one was made of filigree that looked like stitchwork, holding in a bright and immense, beautiful light. The brightest I had ever seen. Underneath its paws, the void below us began to burn away, revealing a trail of glittering silver. The void, pitch black and unending, fought back against the brightness of the wolf, but found itself repelled and wounded by his brightness. Together, me and that wolf followed the silvered trail. With every step, my companion burned away at the void around me. It tried to choke me, deafen me, blind me, but I was never allowed to be swallowed by it. Not completely.

I’m not sure when that trail turned from silver and stardust into a flower field. Sometime in that walk, though, it did. At some point, I found myself walking through a field of lilies and snowdrops. I saw another radiant light in the distance, and I began to move toward it, through the multitudes of blossoms before me. As I walked, long and quiet, the sky above began to clear away, the fog of the void retreating from the brightness that I was approaching and revealing beneath it a sky filled with brilliant stars. In the center of that field, the source of brightness stood. A woman, tall and proud, with flowing robes of light and a clay jar in her arms. 

“You are loved,” she told me, “and you are strong. You are brave, and you have always mattered. Your heart drowns in pitch, but better days will come. I will watch you. I will aid you. But you must always keep walking through the night toward a new dawn. You must stay determined. You are the future of the world.”

When I woke up, I wasn’t in my apartment. I was in a clearing outside of town, and I felt more sober than I had been in months at that point. I began to panic, because I was clear-headed, and sober me knew that I had imbibed too much, that I was in deep trouble without a drink nearby. I had to call Reva to pick me up, and the second I got home, I drank deep and staved off the tremors that had already begun to set in. But try as I might, that little spark just wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t help but remember that dream, and think to myself, maybe things really will get better someday.

Even despite that little ember of hope, it was still hard to keep from getting worse. I started staying out later. Stumbling home in stupors from the bar. Not sleeping even more than I already did. It hurt, still. Even though I hoped for better, even though I couldn’t bring myself to want to die anymore, everything I had lost still took its toll.

One night, I again had a dream. Though I was tenuously clinging to the root of a nearby tree, I was in danger of being sucked into a murky swamp that reeked of blood, tears, and viscera. I struggled against a sucking tide, trying to pull my way free, when a hint of silver-blue caught my eye. A fox-spirit watched me from the tree branches, and when I met its eyes, it jumped down and sat next to a sturdier-looking hold than the one I clung so desperately to. I was able to pull myself free on that branch, but the dream didn’t last much longer than that, because I struggled to stay asleep still.

That morning, I decided to go to the thrift store, and what a bargain I found. A copy of a game I had been hunting down for years, and a rare and valuable one to boot, sitting in a pile of used cartridges marked at five dollars each. Well-taken care of, like it hadn’t been touched in years. Naturally, with the little bit of pocket change I happened to have, I bought it. Immediately, it took the most important spot in my collection. I displayed it as proudly as I could, because it was one of my favorite games. 

And, well, I guess you know what happened from there.

I still don’t know why me. Everything I’ve found suggests that she just doesn’t take Garou on most of the time, and there’s next to nothing on packs that have ever patronized her. So why? Why would the embodiment of Hope want a schmuck and a drunkard like me? What do I have to offer the world?

I guess she was right, though. Better days did come. My sister started talking to me again, not long after I started noticing the weird stuff going on in the apartment. I kept seeing someone out of the corner of my eye, so I got out the Waluigi board to open a dialogue. Reva finally cottoned on to how bad I got and now she only lets me order virgin drinks when we’re out. Zerah was thrilled when he realized that I could be near him without feeling that strangeness about him. There’s still a hole in my heart from everything that happened, but it doesn’t hurt as much anymore.

Maybe I am meant to do something one day. I don’t know. Maybe this was Gaia’s way of telling me to keep holding on. I guess that’s a possibility too. I’m pretty divorced from whatever others like me believe, so I don’t know what their take would be on it. Maybe what they think doesn’t matter. But she was right, so that’s reason enough for me to keep looking for the dawn.


	11. The Cartridge, pt 1

The air in the tiny thrift shop was imbued with the smell of old mothballs, long-faded and somewhat musty laundry detergent, dust and the sort of perfume that middle-aged and elderly women tend to fancy. Sundries that otherwise hadn’t been touched in years, covered in attic dust and constantly-regenerating cobwebs, sat on what seemed like a dizzying number of tightly packed shelves. Clothes that might have been in fashion in 1985 hung on overstuffed shelves. A bored young woman stood at the counter, constantly brushing back hair that might have been dyed at one point, but the dye had long been washed out and left behind slightly bluish bleach-blond with the roots showing.

The perfect place for a washed up mess to be, that was for sure. At least, she thought so. Alone, in a near-stupor, thrown away alongside racks and racks of shirts that looked like upholstery and entire shelves’ worth of Saved By The Bell: The Board Game. Hell, she didn’t even really belong here, did she? She was broke. She had spent most of her spare money on more drinks to keep the demon of withdrawal away. Ever since that dream she was painfully aware of what a problem she had developed.

But what could she do about it now, with exactly two friends, no health insurance, and no family? She could cut back slowly, sure. Gently bring herself back to sobriety, because withdrawal could kill her. And she wasn’t ready to join her mother in the ground yet. Not when it could still send her stupid, dumb asshole sister over the edge.

… Sister.

She growled unconsciously from the throat. Stupid bitch. Bet she never even called their mom. Bet that’s why she killed herself. Her fault… no. No that’s fucking dumb. She loved her as much as you did, asshole. Does she even know yet? No, probably not. And it’s staying that way, as far as you’re concerned.

Passing by a mirror that looked like once upon a time it had been hand-painted, she couldn’t help but take a look at herself. Doing… better, today. Still pale. Still got the bags under her eyes. Really needed to wash her hair sometime but that took forever and she just didn’t much have the energy to do that these days. More than anything she couldn’t bare to even talk to her sister at length because the second she saw her like this it would be time for all the invasive questions and cold turkey-ing. She couldn’t handle that, physically or emotionally.

No, just… look away.

In looking for something else to look at, other than the shambling corpse she had become, she found herself transfixed by a woman carrying a box labeled ‘video games’ out from the back room where she assumed they sorted their various donations. The worker threw the box haphazardly on the front counter by the other girl, stirring some dust out of the box, and wrote ‘$5 Each” on the front of the cardboard, before walking away. Well, a look at whatever that was couldn’t hurt, right? Couldn’t be more than a bunch of old licensed games and things that everyone had back in the day.

It was clear that the collection, full of cartridges from the early 90’s, was a haphazard assembly of games already bought second-hand. Some sat there in terrible quality, well-loved by small children with all the marks to show it, and others were nearly pristine, maybe even mispriced for their condition. She shook her head. Shame, whoever was in charge of pricing could be getting so much more out of a box like this-

No.

No fucking way.

Her hands trembled as she pulled a near-mint condition cartridge out of the box, a poignant, implacable emotion cutting through the haze induced by the alcohol and overwhelming her entire brain. Time had treated this relic well. Completely unmarred by the hands of children or the yellowing of heavy use or smoke in the air. The only thing imperfect about this treasure were the remnants of a marker on the back, faded by the twenty-six years that this game had been in the wild. Once upon a time, it had probably been somebody’s name, but now it was illegible, a simple reminder of this find’s history. The label, simple, featuring some alien-looking space suit prominently in its background, displayed its title prominently.

EarthBound.

Did that woman even go through this box?! Even the clerk at the counter looked shocked and surprised to see the game there. In this condition, any store who knew what they had just been delivered would have locked this behind the glass and priced it over a hundred dollars.

For a few moments, she held it in her hands and admired it. Her heart raced, her eyes wetted with tears. She had been hunting for this game for years and years. Ever since her own cartridge was lost. Now here it was. And she could afford it! Surely she had five dollars left in her coat pocket somewhere, right? Please, Gaia, have mercy on her. Let her not have spent her last five dollars on alcohol. She would try harder to stop drinking, she promised, just let her have this one treasure to call her own.

… Bingo, exactly enough. Thank you, earth mom.

For the few moments it took to get herself rung up, she relished the look of deep envy in the clerk’s eyes as she was forced to ring up a rare and valuable piece of gaming history for five dollars. It felt like her facial muscles physically creaked as an earnest and beaming smile split her face for what felt like the first time in months. She genuinely couldn’t wait to get home and play it, see if it still worked. If it looked like this, it definitely should. Wow.

On the way out the door, and as she trotted through the cold air down the street at an impressive clip for her current state, she began to think to herself. As the adrenaline of finding a real live copy of this game began to fade away, she couldn’t help but notice that the cartridge felt a little… strange. But by all rights, it didn’t feel like Wyrm at all. It just felt kind of weird, in a way she couldn’t really place. Ethereal, maybe. But maybe it was in her head, after all, she was still running on nothing but a glass of scotch today.

Yeah, it was probably in her head. She needed to get home, have some real food, have another drink and pop this thing in the console.

It was gonna be fine.

Right?


	12. The Cartridge, pt 2 - Childhood Memories

The tiny apartment was quiet when she finally threw the door open. Her roommate wasn’t here right now. Probably working. That was just fine, she would just have to see it later. This was a fucking miracle, this fine. A gift, given to her by Gaia to give her the spark of joy she so needed to push through this awful haze. Thank you, mommy. Thank you thank you thank you. A vampire will be punched in your honor tonight.

The cartridge was set, delicately as she could manage, in the sitting room next to a positively ancient-looking CRT screen which had the requisite console sitting on top of it. She hurriedly prepared herself a bowl of the leftovers from last night’s dinner experiment (needed more curry powder) and stared at the bottle on the counter. She knew she couldn’t pour herself a drink in good conscience after being struck with such good luck. But at the same time, now she was very acutely aware of her dependence. Now she knew that if she didn’t, it would potentially not end pretty.

Fine. But Gaia is watching. She growled at her own hands as she poured the glass and took a sip. The anticipation of the tremors melted away and she relaxed physically, even though mentally she hated herself. Somehow, some way, she was going to break this habit. It just… wouldn’t be today, apparently.

She returned to the sitting room and put the cart into its console, before settling deep into her cozy, eye-searing dubstep nightmare couch. For as much as she knew it looked awful to normies, it was unbelievably comfortable. She loved it for both reasons.

The game turned on successfully, presenting her with the odd title screen featuring an alien invasion upon an old-timey street, obviously digitized from an unknown photograph. The War Against Giygas, presented nowhere else on any of the outward packaging, and a far cry from the advertising campaign used to… “promote” the game. What a weird decision, she thought, but it was the mid-90s and that was all the rage. Or so they thought, given how rare the game actually was to find. Seriously, wow. What a stroke of luck.

The characters each were named as she always used to do as a kid. Herself, her sister, an artifact from a time that was over now. Then two names to fill in the blanks. When she was young, they were just silly names she thought were funny, but as an adult it felt wrong not to also use people she knew, no matter how few those might be. Reva and Zerah would be coming on this adventure, she decided. The dog was named after a childhood pet she only faintly remembered these days, and her favorite thing was always music.

Everything looked to be in order. A placid smile crossed her face as the game began, soothing her heart in a strange way she couldn’t quite place. That sort of nostalgic joy, she supposed, of turning on an old childhood favorite. Even her sister had liked this game, back then. She didn’t seem to like much anymore, but at least there was still the memory. These days, memory was really all she had. Of back before her change. Her, Anya, and…

… and their mother.

Immediately, the mood turned somber. She hadn’t asked for the game with the big, fancy box. Their mother bought it with commission money for the two of them when they were just learning to read. An RPG was a bit much for two three year olds, but she was more than willing to read it to them. At least to start with. She backed off more once they got older and were able to read on their own, but she’d still watch sometimes. Despite what they came to know later, it wasn’t like they were unloved. Quite the opposite. Zora liked to think that deep down, both of them knew that. She sure did, and it made not being able to call her anymore all the harder.

As she went through the motions of the start of the game, her eyes drifted over to an old picture frame hanging on the wall, somewhere in the middle of a dozen or so pictures of Reva’s family. The one she stared at balefully was the last one that they had taken together before everything happened. Despite everything up to that point, for a moment, they looked genuinely happy.

… Wait. What was that? 

In the picture frame’s reflection there. It looked like someone moving. But she didn’t see anything? She looked behind her just to be sure, but no one was there and she didn’t hear anything. Shit, was she starting to lose it? It might have just been a trick of the light.

Yeah, that was probably it. Don’t let it get to you, and everything will be alright.

Two hours passed. By now, her eyes were half-lidded with semi-conscious sleepiness. Rare for her, to be certain, but not unwelcome when she actually felt relaxed for once. Twoson, where the big problem was the neighboring town’s weird blue cult. Crossing the valley to go rescue her next party member, the girl named after her twin. Barely even thinking, at this point, but that was okay. Turning off the brain meat was nice, and she didn’t need to drink to turn it off. A meditative state of sorts.

One that she was, of course, shaken out of the second her character set foot where she needed to go. This… didn’t feel right at all. She didn’t remember Paula giving an impassioned speech about the dangers of being sucked into cult thinking. That definitely was not in the game as far as she knew. This was supposed to be the part where she told the player about Mr. Carpainter and gave them the Franklin Badge, wasn’t it? Where did this talk about abuse and disassociation come from? This was a little bit too real for her comfort.

Someone had fucked with this cartridge somehow. She didn’t know why they would fuck with such an extraordinarily valuable game, and it definitely wasn’t a reproduction cartridge as far as she could tell because there were still minor marks of age on it. But this seemed… way too impassioned to be just anything, and this seemed to be the only thing wrong. ROM hackers didn’t tend to do that too much. More things would have been changed. Right? Whoever did this was horribly upset about this part of the game, unless anything else was wrong. 

Now, she was compelled. Now she needed to keep playing. She needed to know more.


	13. The Cartridge, pt 3 - The Meeting

No dice. All the way to Fourside and nothing else was really all too weird about the game.

By this point, she had to set the controller down as the tremors set in again. It just kept happening. Out of the corner of her eye, something that maybe was shaped like a person, but she couldn’t quite focus on it fast enough before it disappeared from her vision entirely. She read about this. Hallucinations could set in if you weren’t having enough. But no, this was happening right after her last drink, too. There was no way this wasn’t related to the weird messages in the game, if she wasn’t just seeing things. Hopefully, she could get this resolved before Reva came home.

Or she could be dreaming. That was a distinct possibility. But usually in dreams the prophetic bullshit would have already happened by now. That, or the absurd shit that erased all sense that this was going to be cohesive at all. Maybe all that was coming. But the more this occurred, the more she doubted she was sleeping.

Okay. It’s okay. Finish your drink. Make the tremors stop, then focus as much as you can. What could this be. Angry spirit? She didn’t think there was anything she had done to piss off the denizens of the Umbra. This week, anyway. Couldn’t be banes, she would have noticed by now. Right? Was there some unknown thing she had never seen before that had manifested in her apartment all of a sudden? No, right? It’s not like there are just creepypasta spirits just out there, right?

… Wait a hot second. Of course. Creepypastas. Ghosts.

She shot up off of her couch, and raced off to her bedroom, scanning it for an object that she had just now remembered she had. Much as the arcade carpet-print sheets and soft, well-used pillows beckoned to her right now, it wasn’t the time. Instead, she reached deep into the wide-open closet beside it and began fishing around the haphazard mess among spare sheets and tossed aside skirts and dresses. Come on, she knew it was here somewhere… bingo. Yes, this was it.

Coming free in her hands was a simple, wooden, purple box with a circle painted on the top in white. In that circle, there was a bright yellow, upside down letter L. On seeing it, she grinned broadly. If there was anything that she didn’t think she’d ever use legitimately, it was this. The Waluigi Board, hand carved and stained by loving hands, which she’d won out of a raffle during a speedrunning event a year or two ago. Whatever this thing in her house was, hopefully it had enough of a sense of humor to follow along with this, and wasn’t just some stodgy spirit who didn’t understand the concept of ouija.

Or, y’know, the thing would be malevolent and try to murder her. But that was fine with her, honestly. Better to go out in battle than sad on your couch or passed out on the sidewalk somewhere. Sometimes, a risk was worth taking, especially when she might already be in danger anyway.

She, after moving aside a stack of recipe and video game review magazines, set it up on her living room coffee table and placed the planchette on the center of the board. You really, really weren’t supposed to do this by yourself, but this needed to be resolved before anyone got home or anything escalated. After a few measures of deep breathing, she, gingerly as she could, set her hand on top of it and began to speak.

“H… hello…?”

A few long seconds passed with no response. She began to worry that she really was seeing things, or at least that whatever was here didn’t want to speak and wanted to continue fucking with her. It caught her off guard and she jumped when suddenly her hand was moving of seemingly its own volition.

H… e… l… l… o… wah.

Okay, maybe she was onto something. Baby steps. “Was that… your cartridge I bought today?”

Another moment of pause. Her hand soon firmly sat on ‘wah’.

“Oh, well… I’m sorry, about that… I was just so surprised that they’d just price something that valuable so low, so I-”

It began to move before she even finished speaking. I… t… s… f… i… n… e… wah.

The whole space was beginning to feel a little weird now, as she communicated with what she now knew must be a ghost in her apartment. The same weird as what she felt from the cartridge on the way home, but stronger. It still didn’t feel like Wyrm, not really, just… somber and sad. Like opportunities and dreams lost to the shadow of death.

“Is that… your anchor? Is that why you followed me here?”

N… o… t… q… u… i… t… e… wah.

She began to recall something that she’d overheard a Silent Strider say back when she still actually wanted to visit septs. About how ghosts had their own version of the Gauntlet that they were behind, and that if they were close enough to the boundary between worlds you could see, speak and even interact with them through the Penumbra.

“Hey, hold on a second, okay? I think I can make this easier for us. Just promise you won’t be too surprised.”

There was a moment of palpable hesitation before her hand and the planchette stopped firmly on ‘wah’.

A small mirror hanging on the wall would do nicely. She stood up, and focused intently on the reflection. Come on, you haven’t done this in forever, but this is basic stuff. Don’t let it be like the month or two where you lost the wolf entirely, you useless piece of-

The transition into the world of spirits was rough and abrupt, and she stumbled the second she hit the Umbra. Oof, it really had been quite a while. Gonna have to brush off all the webbing in here, make sure everything is still clean-

Her eyes came to rest on a young man standing at the reflection of the coffee table where the Waluigi Board still sat, unusually bright for being a mere mirror to the real world. With shaggy brown hair underneath a worn-looking beanie, a thin, unassuming frame and pale, freckled skin, this guy was definitely not what she expected to see haunting her. This wasn’t a threat, not as far as she knew. This was just some guy.

A guy whose important vessel she had just bought for five dollars at a thrift store.

The fact that he didn’t look too much older or younger than her made her heart sink a little bit. Whatever happened here, it was tragic. For a moment, the thought crossed her mind that she was a few too many drinks away from being a tragedy, too, but she pushed it away in the interest of meeting someone new.

“Uh… hey.”

The young man startled, whipping around to meet her gaze. His eyes widened into blue dinner plates as he was faced with the reality of somebody else standing here with him. Somebody real, somebody very, very much alive.

“How did you get here?!”

“Don’t… don’t worry about it right now. I can go into it later, maybe. I just wanted to see who was around for myself, is all.”

“Look, I’m sorry… all that stuff I put in there was fucked up. You seemed so happy to have it, once I saw you… you deserve a pristine copy. I can go take it out...”

“It’s fine! I promise. It made my day interesting. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, I should… I was still upset when I put it there, I guess, and it’s been a while now. I think I got the point across anyway...”

“… It’s important to you, huh. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I can go, if you want. I didn’t want to bother anyone. But… please, promise me you’ll protect that? If anything happens to it-”

“I get it. And I promise there’s nowhere safer than here for it. I don’t ever intend on letting go of it, this game is very important to me. But… you don’t have to go anywhere. In fact… please, stay a while.”

“R- really? You’re not… creeped out? You’re not upset?”

“Not at all. Now that I know, I’m just happy to have some company.”

“Oh, well… if you’re sure, I guess...”

“I’m sure. Promise.”


End file.
